Help For Gods Hurting People

 ¹ Then all the guerrilla leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, approached ² Jeremiah the prophet. They said, “Please pray to the Lord your God for us. As you can see, we are only a tiny remnant compared to what we were before. ³ Pray that the Lord your God will show us what to do and where to go.”

 ⁴ “All right,” Jeremiah replied. “I will pray to the Lord your God, as you have asked, and I will tell you everything he says. I will hide nothing from you.”

 ⁵ Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord your God be a faithful witness against us if we refuse to obey whatever he tells us to do! ⁶ Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.”

 ⁷ Ten days later the Lord gave his reply to Jeremiah. ⁸ So he called for Johanan son of Kareah and the other guerrilla leaders, and for all the people, from the least to the greatest. ⁹ He said to them, “You sent me to the Lord, the God of Israel, with your request, and this is his reply: ¹⁰ ‘Stay here in this land. If you do, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I am sorry about all the punishment I have had to bring upon you. ¹¹ Do not fear the king of Babylon anymore,’ says the Lord. ‘For I am with you and will save you and rescue you from his power. ¹² I will be merciful to you by making him kind, so he will let you stay here in your land.’

 ¹³ “But if you refuse to obey the Lord your God, and if you say, ‘We will not stay here; ¹⁴ instead, we will go to Egypt where we will be free from war, the call to arms, and hunger,’ ¹⁵ then hear the Lord’s message to the remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and live there, ¹⁶ the very war and famine you fear will catch up to you, and you will die there. ¹⁷ That is the fate awaiting every one of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. Yes, you will die from war, famine, and disease. None of you will escape the disaster I will bring upon you there.’

 ¹⁸ “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as my anger and fury have been poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so they will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be an object of damnation, horror, cursing, and mockery. And you will never see your homeland again.’

 ¹⁹ “Listen, you remnant of Judah. The Lord has told you: ‘Do not go to Egypt!’ Don’t forget this warning I have given you today. ²⁰ For you were not being honest when you sent me to pray to the Lord your God for you. You said, ‘Just tell us what the Lord our God says, and we will do it!’ ²¹ And today I have told you exactly what he said, but you will not obey the Lord your God any better now than you have in the past. ²² So you can be sure that you will die from war, famine, and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going.”

Jeremiah 42

 

You know, if it were "just me" trying to come up with something to teach on each day, I would be a not too effective teaching shepherd. When God first gave me the inspiration to do Daily Words Of Encouragement, I wondered how in the world I would find something fresh and new to write each day. I very quickly found out that I was simply the vessel that God uses to flow through. Each morning, as some of you know, I go into prayer, praise and worship and God then leads me in the direction that He wants me to go.

 

This morning, I opened one of my bibles and this whole chapter of Jeremiah was in front of me. I first thought perhaps the Lord wanted me to teach on Verse 5. I thought it was about obeying the Lord. As I read the entire chapter under the anointing of the Spirit, it became so clear what God wanted to teach me, and you, today.

 

This Word is about feeling "stuck" You know a lot of us are there today. We may be stuck in financial difficulties, stuck in a miserable family situation, stuck in a job we hate but can't quit, because of the unstable job market. We may be stuck in the house due to serious health problems.

 

We are telling God, "Get me out of here, do something, I can't stand it anymore." That's what we feel emotionally, yet intellectually we know there is no way we can leave. Where would we go, what can we do? This may be a situation we walked into willingly that turned out badly or it might be a situation Satan brought about in our lives to get us to give up on God. The situation with these people in Jeremiah 42 is much the same.

 

First of all it appears that they missed the Lord, they didn't listen to His advice and they marched ahead of Him in self-will, and then it turned out badly. Hello???? We have all been there. So now in desperation they go to Jeremiah, and beg him to go to the Lord and plead their case. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted out!

 

Now Jeremiah goes and speaks to God. God then tells Jeremiah if they go to Egypt all the bad things that they are experiencing will happen to them there also. You see, I have found that until we change nothing changes. We will simply "bail out." We go from one bad situation to another, and we take ourselves with us. We take the same attitude, the same unrepentant heart, and the same baggage. 

 

So God then tells them to STAY WHERE THEY ARE. He knows that they know they "messed up" by disobeying God in the first place. He then loves them so much that even though they disobeyed Him, He now has compassion on their plight. I think God feels the same way about ALL of us. He loves us so much that even when He has to punish us He feels compassion for us. That is true unconditional love. Yet, He doesn't rush in to bail us out of the situation.

 

He doesn't do that because He wants us to shine forth in His Glory and Righteousness, and He knows without learning some lessons the hard way, we never will grow up.

 

The GOOD NEWS for them, and for us in similar situations, is what is said in the following verse;

 Stay here in this land. If you do, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I am sorry about all the punishment I have had to bring upon you. ¹¹ Do not fear the king of Babylon anymore,’ says the Lord. ‘For I am with you and will save you and rescue you from his power. ¹² I will be merciful to you by making him kind, so he will let you stay here in your land.’

 

In my life, everything became so much better when I realized that I had to learn to stay in some situations that I found unbearable. I learned to "accept the things I cannot change" and as I accepted them, as Gods will for me, He stepped in and He made them bearable for me. He stepped in and He blessed me in the midst of less then pleasant situations.

 

This little version of the serenity prayer is in my purse, and on my wall;

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

In Proverbs 3: 5-6 we read;

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3, 5-6

 

First and foremost we have to quit doing things that bring destruction in our lives. We have to take a good long look at things and see what we CAN do to make things better.

 If we are drinking, doing drugs, living our lives in some secret sinful rebellion… that we know that we know is wrong…we have to quit it.

 We can give these things up one day at a time, one hour at a time, and one minute at a time, by deciding to just QUIT. Then when Satan comes around to tempt us with them again, we can pick up the phone, or write an email to a non-judgmental Christian friend and say, "HELP", pray for me I am having a weak moment.

Then, when we have gotten all the "junk" out of our lives, we have done all we can do, and we have to then TRUST GOD to "bless our mess." He does it too!  I remember telling God one time, "You know God I have made a mess out of things, I don't know what to do anymore, PLEASE HELP ME!"  He did! He will do it for you too, when He sees that you are doing your best to live your life in Him.

Wherever you are today, you may be in a real jail, or a jail of your own making, but I assure you God can make things good for you. He can give you favor with your "jailer", He will send you friends and people to uphold you and encourage you through the storms of your life.

God will give us peace and serenity in each and every situation as the following scripture states;

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

 

So wherever we are, in whatever seemingly unbearable situation, God will meet us there and make things bearable. He has compassion on our "mistakes" and helps us to bear up under them.

 

There is a lesson in staying. We learn that with God we can stand up against hard situations. We see that in God we are strong. We learn then to help others in unbearable situations. What a joy it is to have the Lord and know that He will bless and prosper us in the midst of bad situations, regardless of how we got there.

When the time is right He delivers us. But if we run too quickly, we then show that we trust in ourselves and not Him. Since we have made a mess of one thing, we will probably make a mess of the situation we run to. Like petulant children we want our way, and unless we learn to come under submission to Him, we will never get to our own personal promise land.

 

In Psalm 50:15 we read; "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me." Sometimes He calls us to stay right where we are, so that others can see Him rescue us in the midst of adversity. What a testimony to a living, loving God that He prospers His kids even in the middle of bad circumstances!

 

Take a look at where you are today. Instead of begging Him to "get me out of this, Father," turn it over to Him and ask Him to prosper and bless you in the midst of the situation. Ask Him to give you unmerited favor with those who oppress you. Ask Him to take your pain and hurt and take it as a living sacrifice to Him.

 

Father, today help us to accept that there really are some things we, ourselves, cannot change. Help us to turn them over to you, knowing that you love us unconditionally and have compassion for our situation. In Your Name, the Name above all names we pray. Amen and Amen